An ordinary contest results

The results are in! If you just want to read the winning stories you can jump down to the bottom.

But first, I’d like to give a tremendous thank you to our wonderful judges, Casey Aimer (of Radon Journal), Charlie Fish (of Fiction on the Web), and Joel Glover (author and Foofaraw alum), as well as all of the writers who participated for taking a chance on our first writing contest.

Congratulations to all the finalists, honorable mentions, and of course, our winners, Zoe Carver, Michael Allen Rose, and Andrea Cavedo. My favorite part of these results was that both Michael and Andrea reside in the greatest city in the world, Chicago.

I’m already hard at work devising our next contest, which I’m aiming to run a bit earlier in Q3 next year. If you aren’t already on the list, you can stay in the loop for future contests and submission windows via our author newsletter.

Without further ado, here are the results:

Longlist finalists, listed alphabetically

• Bad Friend and the Maiden by Brie Atienza
• Come Eat the Bad Dreams by Naomi Koyama-Heath
• First Time by E. Andrew
• Lost and Forgotten by Alyssa Beatty
• Out of Line by J.R. Vernham
• Take Care by Sawyer Sinnett
• The Momentonomicon by Joshua D. Martin

Honorable mentions, listed alphabetically

$10 each and a 1-year Chill Subs membership

• All Those Yesterdays by Elmira Olson
• Thanks for the Memories by Ian VanDuzer
• The Pigeon Man by Ali McLafferty
• UnBecoming by Laurel Hanson
• Winter in the Poison Garden by Andrew Hodges

Winners

Third place: What’s In A Name by Zoe Carver

$110 and a 2-year Chill Subs membership

📝 What’s in a name?

by Zoe Carver

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Second place: ‌To Make a Pie by Michael Allen Rose

$165 and a 2-year Chill Subs membership

🥧 To make a pie

by Michael Allen Rose

foofarawfoofaraw

First place: ‌A Cup to Save the World by Andrea Cavedo

$280 and a 5-year Chill Subs membership

☕ A cup to save the world

by Andrea Cavedo

foofarawfoofaraw

SPONSORED

This week’s ad slot was purchased by friend of Foofaraw, Evan Passero, in support of Elevated Access—a non-profit organization that enables people to access healthcare by providing flights on private planes at no cost, whose volunteer pilot network transports clients seeking abortion or gender-affirming care across the United States.

Foofaraw will match up to $300 in donations to DIFFA Dallas, Elevated Access, and Denton Community Food Center through the remainder of 2025.

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